Stamp out big money politics and political bribery!

Move to Amend is on a roll this fall! The Amend-O-Matic, a mobile money-stamping machine, will be crossing the country this fall, stopping to imprint your hard-earned currency with a strong call for an end to corporate personhood and political bribery.

The Amend-O-Matic is part machine and part vehicle--a public art spectacle, information center and money stamping machine. People can insert dollar bills and receive them back imprinted with messages like "Corporations Aren't People. Money Isn't Speech," "Not to Be Used for Bribing Politicians," and "The System Isn't Broken, It's Fixed." When you spend your stamped money, you send the anti-corporate personhood message out through the country.

The Stampede to Amend 2012 Tour kicks off on October 11 with a press conference in Los Angeles. From there, organizers Ashley Sanders and Renae Widdison will drive the “Amend-O-Matic” across the US. You can see the full tour here, but even better, you can help make the tour a success by hosting a stop, and helping to organize a workshop or training on building the anti-corporate personhood movement.

Hosting the Amend-O-Matic
Ashley and Renae will be driving the Amend-O-Matic to a new community each day, generally arriving around mid-day in order to spend some time in a public location, like a community park, downtown, farmer’s market, or art walk, operating the vehicle to stamp people’s cash and spreading the word about the workshop that evening. They will also be available at this time for interviews with local media. Each evening workshop starts at 6 and lasts an hour and a half. Ashley and Renae are experienced community organizers and trainers who can help your community respond to the impacts of corporate rule and join the Move to Amend campaign or engage more support for the work you are already doing.

Your local Alliance chapter or member network, Move to Amend affiliate, or community group would be responsible for helping to identify a good spot for public stamping, securing a venue for the workshop, hosting Ashley and Renae, doing community publicity and outreach for stamping and workshop, bringing in co-sponsoring groups if you can, passing the hat at the workshop to help fund the tour, and organizing a follow-up meeting about two weeks after the event to keep local organizing going.

The Alliance's Tools for Organizing page has lots of material to share with workshop participants. Other organizing material and publicity tips for mainstream and social media is available from Move to Amend. If you are interested in organizing a Move to Amend event in your community, please email stampede@movetoamend.org with your city and state in the subject.

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Mendocino petition drive meets signature goal, Massachusetts not far behind

Alliance members and supporters in Mendocino County, California, and eastern Massachusetts have reached signature goals to get voter referenda against corporate personhood before the voters.



In Mendocino, the Citizens Advisory measure is on the ballot, after 5661 signatures were turned in, 74% more than the 3240 needed! 



Next, the county Board of Supervisors will put the measure on the ballot. The initiative is on their July 24th agenda; supporters are urged to turn out and show support. 



Tom Wodetzki, AfD member and co-chair of the Mendocino County Move to Amend effort, writes: "Ours could be the first county in California to pass such a citizens initiative, and thereby join the growing number of counties, cities and states nationwide expressing a strong desire to restore real democracy. 


"Our federal and state representatives are not acting to end this outrageous corruption of our elections," he said, "since they benefit from the status quo. So only an ever-growing demand from the grassroots will get the legal change we need, which has to be in the form of a Constitutional amendment." 



“Bravo!" writes Nancy Price, AfD Co-chair and member of the Move to Amend National Organizing Team. "Significantly, the Mendocino initiative supports an amendment to abolish ALL [corporate] constitutional rights, including the First Amendment, and reversal of the doctrine that money is speech. We will only get one chance at a Constitutional amendment and it has to be one that will really set the country on the path to end corporate rule and restore real democracy.”



In Massachusetts, North Bridge Alliance Chapter members petitioned with  Common Cause, Greater Boston Move to Amend, and other groups to get a non-binding referendum question on the ballot in three eastern Massachusetts state senate districts and one representative district. Other groups worked on collecting signatures on Cape Cod and in western Massachusetts. Organizers will know in August whether a sufficient number of signatures are certified, but in most districts the number collected was well over the required number to get the measure before voters.
 


In both Massachusetts and California, resolutions in favor of an amendment to overturn Citizens United only were introduced in state legislatures. California recently passed theirs, becoming the sixth state in the country to do so.

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...and in northern California!

Mendocino Alliance for Democracy members and friends joined the march for the community's Fourth of July parade last Wednesday. The group was not only celebrating democracy, but also their recent petition drive to get an anti-corporate personhood ballot initiative before Mendocino county voters in November. Organizers collected some 70% more signatures than needed to get the initiative on the ballot, and so while the signatures still have to be certified, they're very hopeful that the first hurdle's been cleared.

For more photos, check out this album on our Facebook page.

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Mitt Romney: "Corporations are people, my friend"

Open mouth, remove silver spoon, insert foot. Regardless of whether Mitt Romney was speaking from the heart or got jittery and shot from the hip, his Iowa State Fair quip that "corporations are people" set a lot of teeth on edge. For Romney, perhaps, it was a glib critique of tax increases. But it was also a sign of how closely political fortune is tied to corporate rule and corporate cash.

Romney might be correct in that the money corporations make eventually get paid out to some individuals--employees or stockholders. But to say that corporations are people, and especially to endow corporations with constitutional personhood rights, as court decisions have steadily done, endangers our nation and our democracy. Corporations have no loyalties to any concept other than making a profit. If the good of an individual, a family, a community, or even the nation gets in the way of a strong bottom line at the end of the quarter, there's no question that real people--you and me--will take a back seat to profit.

You don't have to look much further than Romney's own business career to see this concept in action, courtesy of leading political commentator (sadly, we're not being ironic) Stephen Colbert:

“You see, Romney made a Mittload of cash using what’s known as a leveraged buyout. He’d buy a company with ‘money borrowed against their assets, groomed them to be sold off and in the interim collect huge management fees.’ Once Mitt had control of the company, he’d cut frivolous spending like ‘jobs,’ ‘workers,’ ‘employees,’ and ‘jobs.’ […] “Because Mitt Romney knows just how to trim the fat. He rescued businesses like Dade Behring, Stage Stories, American Pad and Paper, and GS Industries, then his company sold them for a profit of $578 million after which all of those firms declared bankruptcy. Which sounds bad, but don’t worry, almost no one worked there anymore."

Romney's rep as a job killer led to his Senate campaign being bird-dogged by a "truth squad" ‘of striking workers from a Marion, Indiana, paper plant who had lost jobs, wages, health care, and pensions after Ampad, a Bain subsidiary, took control. Ampad eventually went bankrupt, but Bain walked away with $100 million for its $5 million investment.

The threat of profit-before-people corporate deeds are why in the early days of this country corporations were kept under tight legal restraint: chartered for a specific public purpose, dissolved when that purpose was accomplished, their books subject to inspection, and conglomerates of corporations owning other corporations forbidden. But thanks to a slew of court decisions, we've swung the other way, to where corporations are legally immortal, dedicated only to profit, and "human" enough to have the same free speech rights as individuals, although their "voice" is amplified a thousand-fold by the money they have on hand to buy, bribe, or influence the candidates of their choice.

So while the Democrats have jumped all over Romney's remark, don't believe their hype. For DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse, for instance, Romney's remarks amount to little more than a lack of sympathy: "There's a great message for people struggling to get by and trying to make ends meet. Don't complain -- corporations are people too!"

Here's news for both parties: it's not just the folks who are struggling who are mightily ticked off at the attitude that Romney's quip represents. It's everyone who questions whether our elected officials are more loyal to their funders than to their constituents. It's everyone who sees elections as a public good that should be publicly funded, just as our police, fire, and libraries are, to ensure every voice and every vote counts. It's everyone who sees the Citizens United decision as the ultimate auction of constitutional personhood rights to the highest bidders. We're the majority, we're the citizens, we're the voters, we're the people, and we want our democracy back.

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On July 4, declare independence from corporate rule!

What are you doing this July 4th? Need inspiration?

On July 4, 1997, AfD founder Ronnie Dugger and Al Krebs, a former AfD national council member and a great defender of family farms, stood side by side in front of the Liberty Bell. Each read his own version of a "Declaration of Independence from Corporate Rule."

Now, nearly 15 years later, we are still trying to keep "the big corporations and the centimillionaires and billionaires" from turning the halls of government into their private clubhouse, and still building the real democracy we need.

Do your bit! It's not too late to get together with fellow activists and plan your own July 4 action. Check out the ideas sent in by groups and individuals and posted here on the Move to Amend website. Dress as a Supreme Court "In-Justice." Be as outrageous as the idea that corporations are entitled to the same constitutional rights as real people.

Bring along copies of this "Declaration of Independence from Corporate Rule" that Nancy Price, AfD liaison to Move to Amend, helped to write. You can print out a large version or a two-to-a-sheet flier from the Move to Amend's organizing resources, or a four-to-a-sheet version on our "Tools for Organizing" page.

Thanks for all you do for democracy, and have a great 4th!

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Fixing democracy: the newsbeat

● Alan Simpson, a Republican who represented Wyoming in the US Senate for almost 20 years and is now co-chair of Americans for Campaign Reform, explains why the GOP should get behind publicly funded campaigns: "Even a cursory glance at campaign finance disclosures shows that the lion’s share of campaign money comes from individuals and groups with vested tax-and-spending interests before Congress."

● Shareholder meetings provide a spotlight for those who have been victimized by corporate practice to confront boards of directors, as foreclosure victims did to Wells Fargo last week. And this year in particular, more shareholder proposals ask boards of directors to report on corporate spending and contributions. In fact, according to ProxyMonitor's Findings page report that among Fortune 100 companies, “the share of social policy proposals focusing on political spending has increased 84% in 2011 from the three previous years (2008-2010)” One of the most ambitious proposals will be heard at Home Depot's stockholder meeting on June 2, where a vote will consider asking the corporation to submit political expenditures to a shareholder advisory vote.

● The coalition Campaign Accountability Watch is asking US attorneys to prosecute outside groups for using nonprofits to take anonymous donations in what it says is a violation of election laws that require transparency. Forty US attorneys have received letters from the coalition.

● Nevada's secretary of state is seeking to beef up that state's campaign finance laws, including passage of a bill that would require earlier and on-line filing of campaign contributions, to allow voters to see who or what was funding a candidate's campaign before election day. Other reforms include restriction of creation of multiple PACs to get around donation limits, online voter registration, a "cooling off" period between lawmaking and lobbying gigs, and disclosure of entities or individuals spending more than $100 for or against a candidate.

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Scalia, Thomas, recusals and the best judiciary money can buy

It's hard not to be cynical about the alleged conflicts of interest surrounding Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, based on their relationships with conservative groups and, in Thomas's case, his wife's lobbying activities. What do you expect? Corporations buy politicians; "bought" politicians appoint and approve federal judges. If the corporate elite has "the best government their money can buy," the judiciary is certainly well represented in the toybox.

Nevertheless, it's good to see that this story is sticking, and even moving into the mainstream media and influencing some legislative action. Some members of Congress, for instance, are asking Thomas to recuse himself from any SCOTUS consideration of health care reform, based on his wife's lobbying activities ($700,000 of which went unreported on disclosure forms). You can read a letter to Thomas from Reps. Anthony Weiner, Pete Stark, Frank Pallone Jr. and Christopher Murphy here; some seventy other representatives have also supported the effort.

Meanwhile two groups in particular have questioned Thomas's ties to Citizens United and to an ultraconservative retreat hosted by the Koch brothers.

ProtectOurElections.org filed a bar complaint today alleging Thomas's bias and actual conflict of interest for his failure to disqualify himself from the Citizens United case after Citizens United Foundation supported his nomination and spent at least $100,000 on commercials attacking some senators opposed to it. This is the second bar complaint the group has filed. Video here.

Meanwhile Common Cause has asked for clarification on Thomas's 2008 speaking engagement at a conservative retreat organized by the Koch brothers, and has petitioned the Justice Department to investigate. The New York Times reports that Justice Thomas "reimbursed him an undisclosed amount for four days of 'transportation, meals and accommodations' over the weekend of the retreat," although he earlier described it as a "brief drop-by." Rachel Maddow has also picked up the story, talking to Common Cause president Bob Edgar.

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Do corporations have personal privacy rights?

by Steven Aftergood, from Secrecy News Blog

The Supreme Court will decide next year whether corporations are entitled to "personal privacy" and whether they may prevent the release of records under the Freedom of Information Act on that basis. FOIA advocates say that assigning personal privacy rights to corporations could deal a crippling blow to the Act.

The case before the Court--known as FCC v. AT&T--arose from a FOIA request to the Federal Communications Commission for records of an investigation of a government contract held by AT&T. The FCC found that the requested records were subject to release under FOIA. But AT&T challenged that decision and won an appeals court ruling that the documents were law enforcement records that were exempt from disclosure because their release would constitute "an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" -- namely, the "personal privacy" of AT&T.

The appeals court noted that the word "person" is defined in the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) to include corporations, and it went on to infer from this that the FOIA exemption for "personal privacy" in law enforcement records must logically extend to corporations as well.

But "that analysis does not withstand scrutiny," the government argued in its petition (pdf) to the Supreme Court for review of the case. Personal privacy can only apply to individual human beings, it said, and not to other entities. "The court of appeals' novel construction would erroneously create a new and amorphous 'privacy' right not only for corporations but also for local, state, and foreign governments [which also fall under the APA definition of 'person']."

A concise description of the pending case as well as key case files and amicus briefs filed with the Supreme Court by several FOIA advocacy organizations are conveniently available from the Electronic Privacy Information Center. (EPIC prepared one of the amicus briefs and Steven Aftergood was among the signatories to it.)

Corporate information that qualifies as a "trade secret" has long been exempt from disclosure under the FOIA. But prior to this case, no court had ever held that a corporation also has personal privacy rights.

If affirmed by the Supreme Court, the appeals court ruling "could vastly expand the rights of corporations to shield their activities from public view," said Sen. Patrick Leahy this week, and it "would close a vital window into how our government works."

"Congress never intended for this [personal privacy] exemption to apply to corporations," he said. "I also fear that extending this exemption to corporations would permit corporations to shield from public view critical information about public health and safety, environmental dangers, and financial misconduct, among other things -- to the great detriment of the people's right to know and to our democracy."

"I sincerely hope that our nation's highest Court... will narrowly construe the personal privacy exemption, consistent with congressional intent," said Sen. Leahy. "Should the Court decide to do otherwise, I will work with others in the Congress to ensure that FOIA, and specifically the personal privacy exemption for law enforcement records, remains a meaningful safeguard for the American people's right to know," he said.

FCC v. AT&T is scheduled to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on January 19, 2011.

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Concord, Massachusetts forum on corporate personhood and defending democracy

What led up to the Citizens United decision, how will it affect elections and our democracy, and what actions can individuals take in response? To answer some of these questions, four Concord, Massachusetts community groups have organized "Democracy in the Balance: Corporate Power in Politics," a free public forum on Friday, March 19, 2010, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Trinitarian-Congregational Church, 54 Walden St., Concord, MA.

The forum will feature three experts on the issues raised by Citizens United:

• Mary Zepernick, a researcher for the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy and a board member of the Women’s International League of Peace & Freedom, both of which filed an amicus curiae brief in Citizens United;
• Jeffrey Clements, the Concord lawyer who was counsel of record for that amicus brief; and
• John Bonifaz, constitutional lawyer, founder of the National Voting Rights Institute and legal director of Voter Action in Western Massachusetts.

The March 19th forum has several aims:

• To look at the historical highlights of government restrictions upon or expansion of corporate power since the founding of our nation;


• To explain the recent Supreme Court case and its likely impact on our democracy; and


• To explore current options for redressing the now unfettered corporate influence on elections.

After the presentations, there will be an opportunity for discussion. This free forum is open to all, and refreshments will be served.

Democracy in the Balance is co-sponsored by four community groups dedicated to educating and engaging the public: the Alliance for Democracy, North Bridge chapter; Carlisle Climate Action; ConcordCAN (Concord Climate Action Network); and the League of Women Voters of Concord- Carlisle. For more information, visit www.lwvcc.com, email DemocracyForum@lwvcc.com or call 978-369-3842.

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300 take to the streets of Madison to call for constitutional amendment against corporate personhood

Yesterday's demonstration in Madison, Wisconsin brought more than 300 people out to the State Capitol to voice their objections to the Citizens United v. FEC decision, and to yet another blow by the courts to the separation of corporation and state.

Speakers included Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Center, Lisa Graves of the Center for Media and Democracy, activist and FightingBobFest organizer Ed Garvey, and former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager.

Kicking off the march to the nearby Federal Courthous, Ben Manski of Liberty Tree Foundation, noted that the crowd was taking action on Susan B. Anthony's birthday. "Were she alive now, she would be here, on her birthday, celebrating with us, marching to overrule the court."

The suffragettes and abolitionists who fought for the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th amendments, he added, "spent their entire lives in those struggles. And would anyone here venture to say that those years, those decades, those lives, were not worth what was gained? On a future day, a multitude will gather on these same steps and look back at what we here dare to do, and they will thank you."

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Good Read: Two-thirds of Americans unhappy about Citizens United ruling

A new poll shows overwhelming dissatisfaction with the Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, especially among independent voters.

by Evan McMorris-Santoro. Posted February 8 on Talking Points Memo

Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito may not have wanted to hear it during the State Of The Union address, but a new poll shows the majority of Americans agree with President Obama's take on the Citizens United ruling. More than 60 percent of respondents say it was a bad idea.

The opposition was found across party lines, and according to the pollsters was especially common among independents -- the group both parties have desperately fought over for a decade now. The pollsters said that result suggests that the parties would be well-served to take on the ruling and reinstate campaign finance regulations canceled out by the ruling with new law.

The poll was conducted by a bipartisan pairing of Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and Republican strategist Mark McKinnon. The sponsors were several groups opposed to the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which they say will open the door to unheard of corporate influence in American politics. The results of the survey show that the general public overwhelmingly agrees. Sixty-four percent of respondents were opposed to ruling, while just 27% said they favored it.

"The results are pretty striking," Greeberg said on a conference call with reporters this morning. He said that the current anti-establishment fervor in the electorate suggests that incumbents should get as far away from the Citizens United ruling as they can. "The last thing people want to see in this environment is corporations having more influence on politicians."

That's especially true among independents, as data from the poll shows.

More than 80% of independents said new limits should be placed on campaign spending. Seventy-four percent of independents agreed with the statement that "special interests have too much influence in Washington."
Though the results are good news for campaign finance reform fans, they're not so good for the party in power at the moment. Independents did not give positive reviews on how Democrats have dealt with the problem of special interest influence in Washington. Just 30% said President Obama has reduced the power of lobbyists in Washington, while 50% said special interests have gained more power in the city since he took office.

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Murray Hill Inc. declares for Congress!

It was only a matter of days... but now there's a corporation running for Congress. Murray Hill Inc., which in everyday life is a creative consulting and design firm, has thrown its... um... not its hat, it doesn't have a head... or is it "their hat"... well, whatever.



And here's the statement: "Until now, corporations only influenced politics with high-paid lobbyists and backroom deals. But today, thanks to an enlightened supreme court, corporations now have all the rights the founding fathers meant for us. That's why Murray Hill Incorporated is taking democracy's next step-- running for Congress."

On the personal side, Murray Hill Inc.'s hobbies are capitalism, and its or possibly their favorite book is "Atlas Shrugged."

However, Murray is not the first corporation to take this momentous step. In 2008, Rich-CorporateSon Inc., a feisty Oregon institution incorporated by Portland's End Corporate Personhood Action Group, ran for Governor, and had a few of his proxies debate Thom Hartmann, with piano accompaniment. It's a long video but fun to watch with lots of good background on this important issue.

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Sample letters to the editor on Citizens United and corporate personhood

Use these as a model for your own writing. They were developed by AfD co-chair Nancy Price and Justice Rising editor Jim Tarbell. When your letter is published please let us know and we'll link to it or repost it here. Letter #1 begins here, and continues, along with letter #2, at the "read more" link.

Letter #1
Dear Editor,
In this era of health reform legislation manipulated by senators beholden to the insurance industry and pharmaceutical lobbyists, the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opens the door for complete corruption of our democracy. Masquerading as a free speech case, it actually guts previous state and federal limits on campaign expenditures, especially the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold). Now corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money to buy the election result they want and manipulate politics and policy in their self-interest.

This is all part of a legal agenda that includes eliminating restrictions on corporate campaign contributions. The right has been trying to take over the federal courts for over twenty years and this decision proves they have been successful at packing the Court with politicians in robes.

This Supreme Court ruling is being widely applauded by the Republican Party, which sees it as a boon to their fundraising efforts. With pivotal elections for control of the House, Senate and statehouses in November, corporations will use this decision to accelerate their take-over of our political system.

Many groups are organizing to confront this corporate offensive with campaigns to challenge the controversial legal doctrine of the corporations have personhood rights under the 14th Amendment and therefore the First Amendment rights to free speech.

Justice John Paul Stevens writing for the minority said: “The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.”

Corporations are not persons. It will only be by reclaiming control of our democracy that we can ensure a safe and healthy future for our families and ourselves. For information on the new Campaign to Legalize Democracy and movement to Amend the Constitution to strip corporations of all constitutional rights conferred piecemeal by the Court over the years, check out www.thealliancefordemocracy.org and www.MovetoAmend.org.


Letter #2
Dear Editor,
Ten years ago, people rallied to stop global corporate governance at the WTO in Seattle. Now, the recent Supreme Court ruling further entrenches corporate power and rule in our nation.

The Roberts Court majority of right-wing, pro-corporate ideologues, in their recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, opened the door to unlimited corporate campaign spending in state and federal elections. This comes when Wall Street banks were the biggest campaign donors in the country. If we think corporate-friendly politicians have handed a boondoggle of cash to their Wall Street friends during the recent banker-caused financial crisis, just count what they contribute to their Wall Street-friendly candidates this election year to buy the results they want to manipulate politics and policy in their self-interest.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the dissent for the minority: ”Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.”

We can not allow the Supreme Court’s expansion of free speech rights under the First Amendment to further entrench corporate power in the law of the land. Nor, can we allow the controversial legal doctrine of “corporate personhood” that gives corporations protection under the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights go unchallenged. Corporations are not persons. They are artificial entities. We must make clear that the American people are in charge of their government, and not the corporate elite and their corporate-friendly courts.

The only way to establish citizen control of our democracy is to pass a constitutional amendment to deny corporate personhood, thereby stripping corporations of all constitutional rights conferred on them piecemeal by the Court over the years. Go to www.thealliancefordemocracy.org for information on how to join the national uprising putting people in power, not the monied elite. Thanks for joining in.

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Alliance for Democracy's statement on Citizens United v. FEC

Today we join the national cry of outrage over the U.S. Supreme Court opinion allowing unlimited corporate money for political campaigns and affirming the rights of corporations as “persons”

Today’s Supreme Court opinion in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, a campaign finance law case, opens the floodgates to allow unlimited corporate spending to influence state and federal elections and further entrenches corporate power in our nation.

This 5-4 decision overturns previous Court decisions that limited corporate money in politics. In lifting the previous federal ban on corporate “independent expenditures,” the court has overridden laws in 22 states banning “independent expenditures” by corporations and unions. Now corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money to buy the election results they want and manipulate politics and policy in their self-interest.

“The Constitution was written to protect real people, not to give corporations the power to challenge our fundamental rights and enacted laws,” said Nancy Price, Alliance for Democracy Co-Chair. “With this decision, a business-friendly Supreme Court majority is further eroding the very basis of our democracy by allowing corporate money to dominate the political process. Corporate political speech is a lot louder than that of ordinary persons. This is a critical time for our democracy and many are alarmed.”

The Alliance welcomes the observation by Justice Stevens in his dissent with Justices Ginsburg, Breyer and Sotomayor concurring, that

“The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.”

However, this should apply to all Constitutional rights conferred on corporations by the courts through the doctrine of corporate personhood. It is these court-conferred rights which have robbed, “we, the people” of our ability to govern ourselves without interference by the monied-power of corporations.

Corporations are not persons. They are artificial entities. And as Stevens et al make clear,

“Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office.”

The Supreme Court’s expansion of corporate free speech rights under the First Amendment further entrenches corporate power in the law of the land. It is a stunning setback for American democracy and a crime against the rights of ordinary people.

“We join with our grassroots allies in the Campaign to Legalize Democracy in support of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to remove personhood rights and protections from corporations for all time,” Price said, urging that concerned citizens visit the new website www.MovetoAmend.org and sign in support.

This opinion further entrenches the controversial legal doctrine of “corporate personhood” arising from the 1886 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Santa Clara railroad case. In this decision, the activist court asserted, without explanation, that the 14th Amendment, enacted to guarantee equal protection and constitutional rights to recently freed slaves, applied to corporations. As a result, corporations, artificial entities created by and subject to state laws, have successfully claimed many of the constitutional rights that real persons possess, even though the word “corporation” never appears in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

Corporations have used the Constitution to challenge the constitutionally recognized rights of human beings, not just the First Amendment right to free speech but other protections under the Bill of Rights and the Constitution itself. The concept of corporate personhood, though absurd on its face, has been slowly gaining momentum since the mid-19th century, as the hard-won Fourteenth Amendment has been used effectively over the decades to expand corporate power rather than to protect the rights of ordinary people. Today’s Supreme Court ruling continues this misdirection.

The Alliance calls on the American people to stand up and take back our democracy which has fallen under corporate rule and end this corporate crusade to subvert democratically enacted laws.

One step is mandatory public financing of state and federal elections. Another step is a constitutional amendment to deny corporations First Amendment rights to political speech and to spend money in elections.

Ultimately, a Constitutional amendment is needed to deny corporate personhood and thereby stripping corporations of all constitutional rights conferred on them piecemeal by the Court over the years.

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After Citizens United: An urgent call to action

From the Campaign to Legalize Democracy; the Alliance for Democracy is a member of this coalition.

Urgent Call to action from Howard Zinn, Thom Hartmann, Medea Benjamin, Fran & David Korten, Bill McKibben, Bill Fletcher, Jim Hightower, Tom Hayden, Rev. Yearwood & many more...

Exxon. AIG. Enron. Blackwater. Edison. Halliburton. Diebold.

They've gone after our tax dollars. Our services. Our jobs. Our schools. Our military. Our votes. Our future.

Our freedoms. And the federal courts have helped them every step of the way.

Today, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government.

Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions. The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule.

We Move to Amend.

We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

• Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
• Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our votes and participation count.
• Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.

Adrienne Maree Brown, Ruckus Society
Alec Loorz, Kids vs Global Warming
Andrew Kimbrell, International Center for Technology Assessment
Andy Gussert, Citizens Trade Campaign
Anne Feeney, musician
Ben Manski, attorney, Exec. Director, Liberty Tree
Benno Friedman, photographer
Benson Scotch, former Staff Counsel to Sen. Leahy, U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
Bill Fletcher, Exec. Editor, BlackCommentator.com
Bill McKibben, founder, 350.org
Bill Moyer, Backbone Campaign
Brad Friedman, Publisher, The BRAD BLOG
Brad Thacker, Be The Change USA
Brett Kimberlin, Director, Justice Through Music
Brian McLaren, Christian activist & author
Carl Davidson, Progressive America Rising
Carolyn Oppenheim, Shays 2
Charlie Cray, Center for Corporate Policy
Dal LaMagna, founder, Tweezerman, Inc.
Dave Wells, formerly Board of Directors, Sierra Club
David Cobb, initiator of 2004 Ohio Recount
David Gespass, president, National Lawyers Guild
David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World
David Rovics, musician
David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet.org
David Wells, Jr., Nashville Urban Harvest
Dean Myerson, Executive Director, Green Institute
Diane Wittner & Margaret Flowers, Chesapeake Citizens
Dr. Jill Stein, candidate for Governor of Massachusetts
Ed Garvey, attorney at law, editor, FightingBob.com
Emily Levy, Velvet Revolution
Fran Korten, Editor, YES! Magazine
Frank Arundel, activist
Gary Zuckett, WV Citizen Action
George Friday, National Coordinator, IPPN
George Martin, United for Peace & Justice
Georgia Kelly, Praxis Peace Institute
Glen Ford, Executive Editor, BlackAgendaReport.com
Greg Coleridge, NE OH American Friends Service Committee
Howard Zinn, historian
Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western State Legal Foundation
James Gustave Speth, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Demos
Jan Edwards, writer
Jane Anne Morris, author, Gaveling Down The Rabble
Jeff Cohen, founder, FAIR
Jeff Milchen, founder, ReclaimDemocracy.org
Jeffrey Short, Ph.D., Pacific Science Director, OCEANA
Jerome Scott, League of Revolutionaries for a New America
Jill Bussiere, Co-Chair, Green Party of the U.S.
James M. Cullen, editor of The Progressive Populist
Jim Hightower, author, columnist, and radio commentator
Joel Bleifuss, Editor & Publisher, In These Times
John E. Peck, Executive Director, Family Farm Defenders
John Nichols, Washington Correspondent, The Nation
John Rensenbrink, President, Green Horizon Foundation
John Stauber, author, Weapons of Mass Deception
Jonathan Frieman, social entrepreneur
Josh Healey, Youth Speaks
Josh Lerner, The New School for Social Research
Josh Silver, Executive Director, Free Press
Judith Pedersen-Benn, Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community
Kai Huschke, Envision Spokane
Kaitlin Sopoci-Belknap, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County
Ken Reiner, inventor and founder, Kaynar Corp.
Kevin Danaher, Executive Co-Producer, Green Festivals
Kevin Zeese, Executive Director, TrueVote.US
Leah Bolger, CDR, USN (Ret), Bring the Guard Home! It's the Law.
Lewis Pitts, Lawyer, Legal Aid of NC
Lisa Graves, Executive Director, Center for Media and Democracy
Lori Price, Managing Editor, Citizens for Legitimate Government
Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director, The Praxis Project
Margo Baldwin, Publisher, Chelsea Green
Mark Crispin Miller, author, Fooled Again
Mary Zepernick, Program on Corporations Law and Democracy
Marybeth Gardam, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
Matt Nelson, Just Cause
Matt Rothschild, Editor, The Progressive
Medea Benjamin, co-founder, Code Pink
Michael Albert, Z Communications
Michael Bonnano, OpEdNews
Michael Marx, Corporate Ethics International
Michael Shuman, attorney, economic, author of "The Small-Mart Revolution"
Mike Ferner, President, Veterans for Peace
Mimi Kennedy, actress, activist
Miriam Simos, Starhawk, activist and writer
Nancy Price, Alliance for Democracy
Nick Pavloff, Jr., Gulf of Alaska Aleut from Kodiak Island
Norman Solomon, author, co-chair, Healthcare Not Warfare campaign
Patrick Reinsborough, SmartMeme
Paul Saginaw, founder, Zingerman's, Inc.
Prof. Peter Gabel, School of Law, New College of California
Prof. Victor Wallis, Managing Editor, Socialism & Democracy
Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Rep. Michael Fisher, House of Representatives, Vermont
Rev. Edward Pinkney, Black Autonomy Network Community Organization
Rev. Lennox Yearwood, President, Hip Hop Caucus
Richard Mazess, Prof. Medical Physics, UW-Madison, CEO of Lunar Corp & Bone Care Intl.
Riki Ott, Executive Director, Ultimate Civics
Robert McChesney, professor, co-author, The Death and Life of American Journalism
Ronnie Cummins, founder, Grassroots Netroots Alliance
Sally Castleman, Election Defense Alliance
Sam Smith, Editor, Progressive Review
Sarah Manski, CEO, PosiPair.com
Shahid Buttar, Rule of Law Institute
Ted Glick, climate change activist
Ted Nace, author, Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power
Thom Hartmann, nation's #1 nationally syndicated progressive talk show host
Tia Oros & Christopher Peters, Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development
Tiffiniy Cheng, Executive Director, A New Way Forward
Tim Carpenter, Executive Director, Progressive Democrats of America
Tom Hayden, activist
Ward Morehouse, chair, National Lawyers Guild's Committee on Corporations

* organizations listed for identification purposes only

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Possible decision today on Citizens United

Update! No decision today--possibly Tuesday, January 19, according to SCOTUSblog, but we'll keep an eye out.

There may be a decision today in Citizens United v. FEC. Check SCOTUSblog.com for liveblogging on decisions after 10 a.m. today, or the opinions page at the Supreme Court's site.

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Corporate personhood time line

This timeline traces the history of how corporations accumulated personhood rights, and how certain persons considered less than human gained equal protection under the law. It was compiled by Jan Edwards (who also developed the Tapestry of the Commons presentation and radio spots), with much help from Doug Hammerstrom, Bill Meyers, Molly Morgan, Mary
Zepernick, Virginia Rasmussen, Thomas Linzey, Jane Anne Morris, and Richard Grossman. This is the 2002 revision. It's also available on the Reclaiming Democracy site, and, with commentary, on WILPF's website.

Corporate Personhood Timeline

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No decision this week on Citizens United v. FEC

A decision in the "Hillary the Movie" case, Citizens United v. FEC, has been expected since early this month. Monday could have seen an announcement from the Supreme Court, but the justices handed down decisions in three other cases instead. Look for a December decision at the earliest. Meanwhile, USA Today analyzes the impact of a pro-corporate-money decision in the case on governors' races--corporate campaign spending in several states is banned now, but these rules would be overturned if the court finds in favor of Citizens United.

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Questions for Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor

The questions that should be asked, c/o POCLAD. Their open letter to the Judiciary Committee follows the questions.

First a bit of background. In a 1978 case, First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the Supreme Court decided, 5 to 4, that business corporations -- just as flesh and blood like you and me -- have a First Amendment right to spend their money to influence elections. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist dissented. "It might reasonably be concluded," he wrote, "that those properties, so beneficial in the economic sphere, pose special dangers in the political sphere." The late Chief Justice went on to write: "Furthermore, it might be argued that liberties of political expression are not at all necessary to effectuate the purposes for which States permit commercial corporations to exist."

Do you believe that corporate money in our elections poses "special dangers in the political sphere"?

Do you believe "that liberties of political expression" are necessary "to effectuate the purposes for which States permit commercial corporations to exist"?"

Do you believe that money is speech? Or is it property?

In 1886, only eighteen years after the people ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court had before it Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. The issue was whether the Amendment's guarantee of equal protection barred California from taxing property owned by a corporation differently from property owned by a human being.

Chief Justice Morrison Waite disposed of it with a bolt-from-the-blue pronouncement: "The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a state to deny any person the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." The conferring of Fourteenth Amendment rights on the corporate form appeared in a clerk's headnote to the case.

How would you characterize the Court's refusal to hear argument in a momentous case before deciding it?

Was the "person" whose basic rights the framers and the people sought to protect through the 14th amendment to the Constitution the newly freed slave?

Was the "person" a corporation?

Is a corporation a person "born or naturalized in the United States"?

In proclaiming a paper entity to be a person, was the court faithful to the intent of the framers of the Amendment and to the intent of the people who ratified it?

How would you characterize the court's refusal to hear argument in a momentous case before deciding it?

Would you describe the court's action in Santa Clara as conservative? As radical? As open-minded?

Would you characterize the Court's Santa Clara action as being an example of judicial activism?

Here's POCLAD's letter:

OPEN LETTER TO MEMBERS OF THE US SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
from the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD)
July 14, 2009

Dear US Senate Judiciary Committee Members,

The Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD) calls on you to continue your questioning of US Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Judge Sotomayor's position on the larger issue of this nation's democracy, trampled by the rights and powers of corporations to govern, have so far been left untouched and unexplored in Senate confirmation hearings.

The vast majority of non-criminal cases to be brought before the nine robed ones of the Supreme Court in the next few years will relate to matters of corporate "rights," protections, and dominance and their impact on the rights of human beings in this so-called democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that questions be asked concerning the doctrines of corporate autonomy and authority that insulate these collections of capital and property from control by the people and their legislatures - a control that existed at one time in this nation.

Have the judiciary's efforts been so successful over the last 200 years to find corporations within the US Constitution and bestow constitutional "rights" upon them that current lawmakers fail even to question this democratic and illegitimate reality? Indeed, for two centuries Supreme Court justices, the closest institution we have to Kings and Queens, have been at the center of affirming and expanding corporate rule and placing corporations well beyond the authority of the people. We hope you do not concur with this history and its consequences.

We hope the questions on the following page are asked of nominee Sotomayor during her Senate hearings. Only after she responds to these concerns and her answers promptly made available to the general public and to all U.S. Senators should voting on her confirmation occur. It should be noted that these questions were the same that we requested be put to Judge Samuel Alito during his January, 2006 confirmation hearings. To our knowledge, none of them were asked.

The appointment for life of a person who will assume a position of vast and seemingly ever growing power in our society demands an exhaustive review of every issue area that he/she is likely to address on the high court. Corporate constitutional rights and their impact on our rights as self-governing human beings certainly qualify as one such area of questioning. This decision is of the utmost importance to the fate of the country.

Respectfully,

The Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy

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Supreme Count Rules For-Against Limiting Corporate Funding For Political Campaigns

The decision by the Supreme Court is due Tuesday 8 Nov 09.

Here are links to AfD's blog posts about this issue.

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